Firehawk Aerospace test-fires a GMLRS-equivalent hybrid rocket engine from a purpose-built, mobile platform. (Firehawk Aerospace)
Firehawk Aerospace recently conducted its first flight test of a 3D-printed Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) analogue hybrid rocket engine system, the company said in a 26 August statement. The test demonstrated Firehawk Aerospace’s ability to additively manufacture a hybrid rocket engine system as part of an ongoing Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the Army Applications Laboratory (AAL), the statement noted.
This was the first in a series of demonstrations under the AAL contract. “Firehawk will next flight test its Javelin-class and Stinger-class analogues, which are designed as drop-in solid rocket motor replacements for existing DoD [Department of Defense] weapon systems,” the statement said.
Hybrid fuel
“Hybrid rocket fuel is essentially our thermoplastic,” Will Edwards, CEO of Firehawk Aerospace, told
Janes
on 2 September. What makes it hybrid is the solid case for fuel and liquid nitrous oxide as the oxidiser, so that it is half-solid and half-liquid, he explained.
“The neat thing about the hybrids is [their] ability to throttle,” Edwards said. “I could build a 100,000 lb thrust hybrid rocket engine, and it can perform like a 20,000 lb thrust engine, just depending on the flow of oxidiser,” he said.
Firehawk Aerospace’s solid propellant is a similar thermoplastic, “but it has other metallic additives as well as ammonium perchlorate mixed into it”, Edwards noted. This is 3D printed with the energetic in it, while the hybrid fuel is not, he said. There are different processes for the creation of the feedstock for the two fuel types, “but at the end of the day, it all gets 3D printed into” the desired shape, Edwards said.
Demonstration
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